Keith Hutson

The Man with the Xylophone Skull

i.m. Professor Cheer 1879 – 1938

Let’s hear it for this prematurely bald
headmaster: struck by the disquieting fact
his crown — hit with a brass door handle — could
resound, a bell, his temples too, he taught
himself to scale an octave, frontal bone
to back, and at the Christmas show knocked out
a carol, Ding Dong Merrily, performed,
he quipped (as teachers do) on high! But what
should have stayed a daft percussion act at school —
festive morale — didn’t. He went on tour,
six years — concussion, mild first, getting worse, till
memory went with his pension, somewhere
old wolves paw at stone, ravens croak, snow falls
on carcasses through which a cold wind howls.